


Deep in the Woods

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fawnlock, Gen, Kidfic, Teen!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-28 07:04:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deep in the woods behind the cottage where 14-year-old John Watson and his family are summering lives a strange and fantastical creature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep in the Woods

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fawlock and John Cuddles](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/28216) by Shootbadcabbies. 



> Sometimes Shootbadcabbies draws adorable fawnlock and I am overwhelmed by the urge to write about it despite my confusion. Is fawnlock half Sherlock half baby deer? Is he supposed to a be a faun, the mythological creature? How can fawnlock be so impossibly adorable?  
> ETA: Further investigation reveals fawnlock is indeed half deer. Still unclear on how such high levels of cute are achieved.

When John was fourteen, his Great Aunt Harriet died and left his family a small cottage in the woods. His parents argued over what to do with it, but it was eventually decided that they would try living in it over the summer holidays, with the hope that a change of scenery might help with some of their growing problems.  
 Harry, sixteen and cynical, just turned to John and muttered, “New house, same problems. Except now we live in a fucking forest. I wonder if it’ll easier to get cigs here without Mum noticing?”

John rolled his eyes and laughed. Harry grinned at him, punching him on the arm before stalking off to her room.

The cottage was some miles away from the nearest village, and backed by quite dense woodland. The whole family couldn’t work out why Great Aunt Harriet owned a house in the middle of nowhere, though suggestions ranged from ‘love nest’ (Mrs Watson) to ‘murder site’ (Harry). It was quite the mystery, and Mrs Watson had to admit that living in the cottage on any kind of permanent basis was just not feasible. 

Harry spent two days locked in her room with her computer before she grew completely bored of the place, and took to stealing the car and going into town. Mrs Watson turned her energies to repairing the cottage, and working out what could be done with the place. Mr Watson buried himself in the study, somedays with the classifieds, somedays with his laptop, and somedays with a box of wine. John, meanwhile, tried to get some study done, tried to catch up with friends online, tried to watch television, but found himself growing restless, feeling almost trapped in the small house. 

After nearly a week of watching John wander around the house aimlessly, Mrs Watson less than gently suggested that John might perhaps be better occupied exploring the woods behind the house. John was startled by the suggestion, but when he was handed a packed lunch, a torch, picnic blanket and bottle of water and pushed out of the house the next morning after breakfast, he figured he might as well have a bit of a poke around.

The woods seemed quite dense with trees and bushes and endless foliage. The thick canopy overhead gave the whole place a gloomy, slightly spooky air, and John felt his blood race, the crunch of his feet the only sound to be heard. It was sort of brilliant.

It took nearly an hour of wandering past nearly identical trees before John started to grow bored and think about heading back. Not long after he started to pick his way back to the cottage, though, John heard a strange noise. He froze, and listened hard. It sounded a little bit like an animal in distress. Instantly, John found himself fully alert, senses keen and he followed the noise deeper into the forest, breaking suddenly into a beautiful sunlit clearing. It was nearly eight feet across, with a thin trickle of a stream snaking through the middle, and beside it a small figure curled up on the ground, making noises of pain and unhappiness. This close, John realised the noises were of a little boy and he raced over, not panicking, but starkly aware that he was at least an hour away from home, with no access to medical supplies and no way of acquiring help.

John crouched down by the little boy, except... it wasn’t a little boy. And it wasn’t an animal. It was something in between. It had thick brown curly hair, big floppy, velvety ears, small horns, a ruff of thick brown fur, its skin deeply tanned with dark patches of very fine fur, it had a brown furry belly, human hands and feet, and a little tufty tail. There was no time to process what he was seeing, though, and John started to run his hands gently, but efficiently over its back to check for injury. It didn’t respond to John ministrations, still making that curious half-little boy, half-animal noise of distress. John decided to risk rolling the creature over onto it’s back and was surprised when the sweetest, little face was revealed. In features, it was all little boy, and quite a cute cherubic one at that. Its face was the same brown of the rest of him, with little dark brown spots across a little snub nose. Its eyes were screwed shut and the little pink mouth hung slightly open, continuing to make its distress known. John ran his hands down the creatures belly, and was surprised when it laughed. From the indignant little look it gave, it was equally surprised. John grinned at it, relieved it didn’t appear injured.

“I’m John.” He held out a hand.

The creature frowned, ignoring the hand and turned its big, startlingly blue eyes to glare at John. “I don’t know any Johns. I’m Sherlock.”

“Well, you do now. Nice to meet you Sherlock,” John said. “Are you injured?”  

“No, just terribly bored,” Sherlock said shaking his little head, curls bouncing wildly. “What are you?”  

“I’m a human,” John said.

 “I’ve never met a human before,” Sherlock said. “I’ve heard of them of course, but I’ve never had the chance to study them properly before. I think I shall experiment on you.”  John grinned.

 

When John returned that night, sweaty and pink cheeked, his mother smiled at him.

“I thought you would enjoy the woods, you used to spend hours there when we came here to visit Great Aunt Harriet.”  “I didn’t know we’d been here before,” John said, surprised. “I don’t remember it at all.”  

“We stopped coming when you were around five and Dad got a job in London,” Mrs Watson said. “But we had some lovely holidays here. That's why Great Aunt Harriet left the place to us. She said in her will she wanted us to live here full time, but we really just can’t. I don’t know where she would get the idea that someone could live somewhere so isolated, but she had turned a bit strange in her old age.”

 

John took to visiting Sherlock every day. At first, he couldn’t find the creature easily, and would simply leave snacks and treats for Sherlock, retreating unobtrusively. Soon, though, Sherlock would come out to greet John eagerly, reaching for whatever sweet John had thought to bring and gobbling it up eagerly, making John laugh. One day, after Sherlock had managed to swallow a chocolate hobnob in nearly one go, John was struck by a thought.  “I’d better bring you a toothbrush, or your teeth will all fall out.”

Sherlock glared at John, but when John reached down to ruffle his curls, Sherlock nudged up into the movement, sighing contently.

 

When Harry found out about John’s frequent trips to the forest, she mocked him mercilessly, but John couldn’t bring himself to care. Sherlock had proven to be a remarkable companion, not just for his mythological status, but for who he was. Despite looking like and having many the same mannerisms and interests as small child, Sherlock was incredibly intelligent and capable of some real brilliance. Some days Sherlock was full of energy, and would make John run around with him, playing hide and seek or tag, insisting that it was so he could work out how human’s bodies were different from his own, and John never contradicted him, just enjoyed the way Sherlock’s eyes would sparkle with joy and his cheeks pink with exertion and laughter. Other days Sherlock was more sedate, interested only in climbing onto John’s lap and being cuddled, asking endless, surprisingly insightful questions about what human life was like.

There were times when John couldn’t make it to the woods for a few days in a row, and when he did go back, Sherlock would look at him in surprise and confusion for a few moments before recognition would slide into his features and he would rush at John, wanting sweets or cuddles or to be chased around.

 

As the end of the summer neared, the Watsons started to pack up the cottage, Harry, Mr and Mrs Watson with relief, and John with some dread. He was going to miss his funny little forest friend, and Sherlock didn’t seem to understand John when he tried to explain what was happening. John held onto Sherlock long and hard and left him with a tray of Bakewells, promising to be back soon.

They didn’t come back the next summer, or the one after that, and it was nearly ten years before John managed to return, brimming over with excitement to see how his little friend had grown, wanting to tell Sherlock about his successes at uni, his plan to move to the country and start a practice, and his thought that Sherlock could visit his cottage and learn more about humans first hand.

Apparently his memory wasn’t as good as he thought, because he spent that first day searching for Sherlock’s clearing, unable to find it. And the day after that. And the day after that. It wasn’t until the fifth day of fruitless searching, that John caught a funny little noise of distress, and followed the sound quite desperately.

“Sherlock!” John called out excitedly. “I’ve come back! I know it’s been a while, and I’m sorry, but I can explain.”

John burst into the clearing and immediately spotted a small creature curled up near the stream, making little noises of distress.

“Sherlock, are you actually hurt, or are you just sulking?” John asked as he jogged over to his friend. It wasn’t until he arrived by the creature’s side that he realised it was far too small considering ten years had passed. It was unmistakably Sherlock, but he looked exactly the same as he had last time John had seen him.

“It’s John,” John said anxiously. Sherlock glared suspiciously at John.

“I don’t know any Johns.”

“No, you must,” John said desperately. “I used to visit you nearly everyday for a whole summer. You said I was the only human you had ever met.”

  “I’ve never met a human,” Sherlock said, sitting up curiously. “I’ve heard of them, of course, but I’ve never had a chance to study one properly before. I think I shall experiment on you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also inspired by [this](http://shootbadcabbies.tumblr.com/post/62645524840/oh-oh).


End file.
